Buccaneers’ $14 Million Former First Round Pick Facing ‘Prove It’ Season

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers sent 2024 first round pick Graham Barton straight from the frying pan and into the fire as a rookie, starting him at center for 16 out of 17 games and letting him learn on the job alongside veterans like Ben Bredeson and NFL All-Pro Tristan Wirfs.

While the Buccaneers recovered from a 4-6 start to finish 10-7 and make the playoffs for the sixth consecutive season, little has been discussed about how Barton fared.

The somewhat surprising answer is — not very good. Barton was actually one of the NFL’s worst centers in 2024. It should raise some concerns as to if he should be in a “prove it” year in 2025 because his level of play was so low.

According to Pro Football Focus, Barton’s overall grade of 55.8 put him 45th out of 64 eligible NFL centers. He also led all NFL centers with a whopping 13 penalties.

Barton missed one game with a hamstring injury, in Week 6 against the New Orleans Saints, and was on the field for 1,064 snaps — 100 percent of the offensive plays in the 16 games he started.

Position Switch May Have Impacted Barton’s Play

If we’re looking for reasons why Barton struggled as a rookie, the most obvious would be that it was because he switched positions from where he played in college.

Barton, 6-foot-5 and 313 pounds, started five games at center for Duke as a freshman in 2020 because of an injury to another player before starting 34 consecutive games at left offensive tackle.

The Buccaneers moved Barton to center just a few weeks after they selected him with the No. 26 overall pick.

“We’ll definitely start (Barton) off at center and see how he handles everything,” former offensive coordinator Liam Coen said in May 2024. “There’s a lot of communication and things that can occur with the quarterback and the rest of the unit. We’ll see how that communication goes, but we feel confident he’ll be able to do some of those things. But if not, hey, we’ll slide him over to guard and give him a shot there as well.”

Steelers’ Frazier Named NFL All-Rookie Center

While postseason awards do lack a level of objectivity in most cases, the bar for making the NFL All-Rookie Team has never been tremendously high.

That being said, Barton was beaten out by Pittsburgh Steelers center Zach Frazier for the spot on the NFL All-Rookie Team in 2024. In this cae, it wasn’t even close. You can even make an argument Frazier probably should have not just been named to the All-Rookie Team but also a Pro Bowler — something that’s probably in his near future.

While Barton was one of the NFL’s worst centers as a rookie, Frazier was one of the best. His overall grade of 76.8 from PFF put him sixth among eligible centers. While Barton was called for 13 penalties as a rookie, Frazier was called for just 5 penalties.

Barton is headed into the second season of his 4-year, $14 million rookie contract. Frazier, a second round pick (No. 51 overall) out of West Virginia, is playing on a 4-year, $7.5 million rookie deal.